It’s becoming impossible to get through the day without hearing some expert or other holding forth about personal branding. They’re blogging, YouTube-ing and tweeting every hour of the day.
Take Dan Schawbel, for example. The New York Times has apparently dubbed Schawbel a “personal branding guru”. He should be, he’s written a best-selling book about it and is the publisher of an award-winning personal branding blog (www.personalbrandingblog.com) and magazine. The man has more than 49,000 followers on Twitter!
It seems that personal branding is a bigger topic than I’d imagined and the consequences are huge. No longer can those of us who work from home pop out for a paper in our trackie dacks – heaven forbid that we should be spotted looking unprofessional and hence damage our personal brand.
But could we be at risk of taking ourselves too seriously? I’m all for professionalism, but if we concentrate too hard on creating the perfect personal brand and marketing ourselves accordingly, we are in danger of becoming bland, homogeneous and, ironically, losing our USP (Unique Selling Proposition).
Leaving your footprint
Andy Taylor of Footpoint Shoe Clinic, based in the Sydney suburb of Mosman, is a guy who lives his values rather than spending time talking about them. His shop is pretty unusual. It has Australia’s only traclab – a digital gait assessor on a running track – plus podiatrists working in-store to help assess clients’ foot type and function. Taylor is so confident that he can provide clients with perfect sports footwear that he offers a 30-day guarantee on all runners. So if you buy some, go out for a run and discover they’re not right, he will replace them with a pair that is. I’ve never come across service like that before.
But there’s more to Footpoint than exemplary service. When I got chatting to Taylor I discovered that the shop supports local schools and raises funds for Can Too, an organisation founded by Anne Crawford in 2005 that trains amateur runners and swimmers for endurance events and raises funds for the Cure Cancer Australia Foundation.
We all know times are tough in retail right now. Yet Taylor takes an atypically long-term view. “Having worked for a number of different retailers over the years, I’d become disillusioned with that world. We want to put the integrity back into retail. We believe we have a social responsibility to give back to the community that gives so much to us.”
“When we started the business, one of the important drivers was to create a business based on honesty and integrity. With this focus we are able to establish better relationships with our clients and suppliers and have developed a long-term plan of being involved with our community. It’s important to us to be involved – the people coming into our store are the ones who make our business what it is.
“We have a number of different programs that contribute to the community. These include working with local schools, charity and not-for-profit organisations. We have a real focus on education and believe this will help build better relationships and a more sustainable business.”
Taylor believes altruism can bring commercial benefits. “Companies with a corporate conscience will develop better relationships with stakeholders as they are more concerned about the long-term benefits for the company and individuals. When there is a long-term focus, relationships are built – not to generate immediate sales, but to build loyalty and advocacy.”
He says there is also an upside for employees. “Employees are happier working for a company that wants to do good for the community. It helps them feel personally responsible for actions they undertake on behalf of the company for the benefit of a bigger cause.”
Taylor has it in a nutshell. Sometimes we need to think about the bigger cause, to think outside our personal square. Maybe thinking more about how we can help others and what we can do for our community says more about us than any amount of orchestrated personal branding.
Persephone Nicholas is a freelance writer and regular contributor to The Weekend Australian newspaper. She is particularly interested in career and workplace issues and also writes about travel and lifestyle.
www.persephone-nicholas.com
Photo: Paulo Brandão
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View Comments
Leela Cosgrove
October 15th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Interesting post Persephone!
When I think of personal branding, I don’t think of an orchestrated attempt to look a certain way … rather I think of being who you are (full sleeve tattoos and all
and playing on that – using it to propel further your larger vision and mission.
Of course, not everyone will agree with that definition so once again the whole thing comes down to semantics, I suppose!
But I agree – there should be less of a focus on the outside and more of a focus on the inside – it’s something that drives me mad with “branding” generally (see forthcoming blog post!).
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Shalini Bahl
October 17th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Oh my God! A breath of fresh air. Thank you Persephone (is that your real name?)!
And I so agree with you Leela too that too much of the discussion on personal branding is pertaining to the external and often superficial management of appearances.
I just wrote about what is missing in our discussions on personal branding. Would love to hear your comments to that…http://mindfulmarketers.blogspot.com/
Enjoy!!
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Oscar Del Santo
October 17th, 2009 at 10:12 am
I personally do not see any contradiction between Personal Branding à la Dan Schawbel and a true spiritual and/or humanitarian commitment.
If anything, personal branding when correclty understood should make us more accountable to ourselves and to others.
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Shalini Bahl
October 17th, 2009 at 10:24 am
Hi Oscar, I agree with you completely – there is no contradiction between Dan’s approach and a mindful approach. The problem is that what is missing is a discussion on being your authentic self – so they are not contradictory and in my post I commend Dan for his knowledge and highly recommend every one to learn skills that he has to offer, but simultaneously work on the inner world as well.
As you said personal branding should make us more accountable because it starts with self awareness but a lot of the discussion is about external projections and management. I give an example in my post about a post in Dan’s blog about being your “real” self but the author’s suggestion is to write controversial posts even if we do not agree with them, which will drive more traffic. When it comes to statements like that and there are so many examples of other posts by prominent people speaking about personal branding, with contradictions.
So there is nothing inconsistent about personal branding and mindfulness but it is what is not being said and sometimes when said the inconsistencies inherent in the statements.
Thank you for following up. Did you read my Blog posting?
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Oscar Del Santo Reply:
October 17th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
I agree with you there and I took issue with that specific claim of ‘being controversial in order to get more traffic’. As I wrote there and then, these are the sort of attitudes and comments that make come back to haunt you later in life.
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Persephone Nicholas
October 17th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Hi Leela, Shalini, Oscar,
Thanks for your comments.
Personal branding seemed to me to becoming just another marketing platitude. The original concept certainly has value but since the idea has become common currency, the term has been bandied around indiscriminately and that’s really what I’m having a dig at. I also think that some qualities, for example integrity and authenticity are best demonstrated by action rather than words.
Shalini – Enjoyed reading your blog @ http://mindfulmarketers.blogspot.com
Persephone (yes, it is my real name)
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Leela Cosgrove
October 19th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
For the record – I write controversial posts ALL the time … and they DO drive more traffic … I also get into fights regularly on forums … and sometimes, yes, I’m playing devils advocate …
But that IS who I am (ask my poor partner!) – I am a contrarian cage rattler … and I was one long before I was in business …
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Ray Welling
October 20th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Good thought piece, Persephone.My issue with the whole cult of personal branding is the idea that you need to be seen to be saying something even if you have nothing to say. Why does everyone need to have a blog? It’s a professional hazard in my work (and I’m sorry to admit that if you visit mine it is not updated nearly often enough), but I’m not comfortable with this post-modernist/individualistic/narcissistic view that everyone has to publish their opinion on things in order to succeed in life. You should be able to let your work (either your professional activities or your community-based activities as mentioned in this article) speak for itself.
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Persephone Nicholas
October 20th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Hi Ray,
Quite agree – so much PB (can’t even bear to write it in full now) is just noise.
Your post made me laugh – tried googling you so that I could check out your blog but am not sure which RW is you. Can you let us know….
P
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Ray Welling Reply:
October 20th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Hmmm, just tried Googling myself and I guess I must be doing something right with my own personal branding as nearly all the links on the first couple of pages are me! Main blog is at http://www.zazoo.com.au, with another at http://www.wellingdigital.com.au. You and I had correspondence earlier in the year re: the Help a Writer Australia group (though not sure how much help it was for your stories).
Cheers, Ray
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Persephone Nicholas Reply:
October 20th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Hi Ray,
I knew I knew your name from somewhere – thanks for reminding me. I never did get a response from the group but maybe my topic was a little tricky. I’m finding sourcebottle.com a great way to find case-studies these days.
Hope all’s well with you.
Persephone
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Michel Hogan
October 20th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
The simple distinction I make is you don’t create a brand (personal or otherwise) you BUILD it – one belief and action at a time. So there is no perfect – there is just you, and that is authentic (or not) and people respond accordingly.
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Ben Angel
October 20th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Hi Persephone,
Great post. Re. personal branding, I have literally just written a book on the topic.
My definition of it is;
Self expression amplified to influence and command attention.
It is based on integrity and honesty and the ability to expose one’s self to the market place to truly connect.
Personal branding will see individuals become more of themselves than some contrived image. Personal branding has always been around. To a large degree only musicians and actors have truly utilised it successfully. Until now at least.
Thanks for creating debate on the topic.
Cheers
Ben
Author of ‘Sleeping Your Way to The Top in Business – The Ultimate Guide to Attracting & Seducing More Customers.’
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Persephone Nicholas Reply:
October 20th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Hi Ben,
Thanks for joining the debate. Judging from your book title, I guess you’re the man who’s bringing sexy back into personal branding. Good for you – and good luck with the book.
Persephone
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